It must be remembered that during the rainy season an area equal in size to about a third of the United States is entirely submerged. There is a network of rivers that eventually find their way into the Amazon and the land between is completely inundated. In all this immense territory there are only a few spots of sufficient elevation to be left high and dry. Remate de Males, as I have explained, is at the junction of the Itecoahy and the Javary rivers, the latter 700 miles in length, and thirty miles or so below the village the Javary joins the Amazon proper, or Solimoés as it is called here. Thus we are in the heart of the submerged region. When I first arrived in February, 1910, I found the river still confined to its channel, with the water about ten feet below the level of the street. A few weeks later it was impossible to take a single step on dry land anywhere.

The water that drives the rubber-workers out of the forests also drives all animal life to safety. Some of the creatures seek refuge in the village. I remember that we once had a huge alligator take temporary lodgings in the backyard of the hotel after he had travelled no one knows how many miles through the inundated forest. At all hours we could hear him making excursions under the house to snatch refuse thrown from the kitchen, but we always knew he would have welcomed more eagerly a member of the household who might drop his way.

And now a few words about the people who lived under the conditions I have described, and who keep up the struggle even though, as they themselves have put it, "each ton of rubber costs a human life."